From data to conversation: AI’s impact on ecommerce in 2024

AI is helping ecommerce businesses serve up personalized experiences, boost efficiency, and yes, even uncover hidden revenue. Are you falling behind?

Before ChatGPT changed everything, AI in ecommerce used to mean software that analyzed historical data and made future predictions based on it.

But now, when anyone talks about AI in ecommerce it’s actually Generative AI (GenAI) that they have in mind. No longer a mute piece of software, it’s more of a digital companion that you can talk to. On top of the abilities that came before, it can also answer your clients’ questions, or generate content almost as well as a human.

Boosting efficiency and creativity with GenAI 

The two immediate wins that you can achieve with GenAI across your whole organization are:

1. Efficiency - internal tools powered by GenAI can automate more tasks than traditional AI could, and with less effort to implement it. They can also support your team in new ways, like playing the role of an intern or assistant that finds the right information or generates insights.
2. Creation - think content generation or content personalization at scale, creation of outlines and content for whole marketing campaigns, and more. From coming up with ideas to turning them into finished content, GenAI can do it all.

But the killer use case for GenAI in ecommerce is actually a combination of both.

Where GenAI really shines: customer experience

Customer experience stands out as an area where GenAI can showcase its abilities to the fullest.

It's not about replacing human agents—it's about empowering them. GenAI can:

• Summarize conversations for key points
• Extract the essence from complex customer service threads spread across multiple messages and agents
• Rewrite responses in a specific tone of voice, correct grammar and spelling mistakes, and help make all customer service responses more consistent in style
• Write emails or messages based on key points you can feed it
• Suggest responses to specific customer inquiries

The result? Faster, more personalized customer experience that keeps your shoppers coming back for more. Plus, the job satisfaction for human agents increases because they’re no longer dealing with repetitive, basic cases. They can focus on the clients who are either emotional, or have the most complex issues to solve. 

Generative AI also transforms the experience of talking with a chatbot by providing more relevant, concise responses to customer questions:

• A traditional chatbot needs a script that tells it exactly what to say when a customer asks using specific keywords.
• With GenAI, the bot gains more agency. It learns your FAQ, knowledge base, product catalog, even your brand guidelines, and it generates a fresh answer on the spot.

What your ecommerce gains with smart integration of GenAI

There are two vital abilities that are added to your customer experience toolkit when you use GenAI properly:

• More relevant, context-based conversations
• Better synthesis of insights from customer interactions

GenAI is able to understand the customers’ context. It doesn’t rely on a script, it can ask questions for clarification, and it can make better recommendations. The conversation that a customer has with GenAI is much more human-like than with a traditional bot. 

It can also generate comprehensive reports from all customer interactions. Typically it takes a while for issues reported by customers to surface. Service agents have a frontline view of all potential issues with your e-commerce business, but these insights get lost in the avalanche of repetitive customer queries. A modern AI-powered platform can identify patterns in conversations, find issues that need solving, and proactively fix them to improve customer satisfaction.

How to choose the right AI companion for your customer experience operations

When you browse vendors and their platforms, look for these signs:

• Confirmation of promised results – preferably verified case studies that prove how the platform works.
• White-glove, customized solution – there are a lot of generic solutions out there, you want something that is built for e-commerce from the ground up.
• Expertise to help you get the most from the solution – see if the provider is willing to help you tailor your AI solution to be accurate, relevant, and helpful for your customers, your customer service agents, and the entire business. 

What’s your next move?

The e-commerce landscape keeps changing, and GenAI is currently driving a lot of that change. 

By adopting GenAI early and learning how to extract value from it, you can be a pioneer and future-proof your e-commerce. While immediate adoption isn't critical, those who start working with GenAI now will likely see significant benefits in the coming years.

Thinking about it? Let’s have a conversation.